


Where the Windows are Always Open

by orphan_account



Category: Naruto
Genre: Animal Transformation, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-27
Updated: 2013-11-27
Packaged: 2018-01-02 19:27:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1060670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a bird on your patio.</p>
<p>You’re frozen in the doorway. You don’t know anything about birds, but you know enough to see that it’s very large and very vicious-looking. And it seems to be glaring at you with a piercing blue eye. You glance at your sandwich.</p>
<p>The bird leaves the bread alone and squawks impatiently for more of the sausage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where the Windows are Always Open

**Author's Note:**

> _Pájaros en la cabeza, y volar_   
>  _a donde las ventanas siempre están abiertas..._

There is a bird on your patio.

You’re frozen in the doorway. You don’t know anything about birds, but you know enough to see that it’s very large and very vicious-looking. And it seems to be glaring at you with a piercing blue eye. You glance at your sandwich.

The bird leaves the bread alone and squawks impatiently for more of the sausage.

 

It keeps coming back. In the mornings, when you drink your coffee outside, the bird usually keeps you company. Sometimes you quietly talk to it. You appreciates the chance to put your thoughts and ideas into words for a somewhat attentive audience, even though it can’t actually understand you.

You’ve been thinking off and on about getting a cat. Well, you figure an eagle of some description is even better.

 

It’s a really beautiful bird. You finally sit down with your computer one morning and go through webpage after webpage of raptors, glancing up at the bird, then back down at the images on the screen, until you find the one you’re looking for.

After a moment of silent reading, you remark: “You’re a long way from home, friend.”

The eagle simply blinks at you.

 

_The_ **_Harpy Eagle_ ** _(Harpia harpyja) is the largest and most powerful raptor found in the Americas, and among the largest extant species of eagles in the world. It usually inhabits tropical lowland rainforests in the upper (emergent) canopy layer. Rare throughout its range, the Harpy Eagle is found from Mexico (almost extinct), through Central America and into South America to as far south as Argentina. The eagle is most common in Brazil, where he is found throughout their territory._

 

Your friend starts leaving you gifts. The big bird preens proudly as you carefully pick up the bloody squirrel from your patio floor. Its head falls off. Even while you contemplate ways to get blood out of the wooden floor you find yourself appreciating the gesture.

 

You don’t really understand why the bird sticks around. If you were inclined to such things you’d imagine he enjoyed your company as much as you enjoyed his. But you don’t waste time on childish fantasies, and you very much realise that he’s just a bird. Just an animal.

You conveniently forget that you have assigned a gender to said animal.

 

It’s been almost a month now, and he seems to have made your patio his home. Your sketchbooks have become entirely full of eagles. He is very obliging, seems to understand what pose you’d like.

One afternoon the light hits him _just so_ as he stretches his wings out and his shadow on the wall looks amazing and you  _finally_  have the inspiration you need for the commission made by the local art gallery. You sit up long after he’s stuck his head under his wing and dozed off, sketching out your ideas and tacking them up onto the wooden screen shielding your patio from your neighbours’ curious eyes as you get new ones.

The sun has already risen once you stumble back inside, eyes bleary from lack of sleep and mind buzzing with images. You only make it to the couch, but it will have to do.

 

Once you wake up in the afternoon he’s away, presumably to hunt, and at first you don’t notice that some of your sketches are missing. When you do it’s impossible not to notice the marks marring the wooden divider screen where you had tacked them last night. At first you’re angry, furious even. You sullenly take down the other papers (before he ruins them as well) and clean up the scraps that you find on the ground. When you look it all through in your studio to see if anything’s salvageable, however, you find that the ones he destroyed aren’t as good as the ones he left.

He doesn’t get back for a few days. When he does, you just sit quietly, a few meters apart.

"I’m not mad at you," And now you’re talking to an animal as if he can actually understand you. Wow, you need to get out more. "I even agree with you. They weren’t my best." He blinks one large icy blue eye at you. You take it as an agreement.

"Don’t be smug about it."

 

Whenever you leave your studio for a meal taken outside, you watch him carefully. You still don’t know anything about birds, but some of the things he does doesn’t seem like very bird-like behaviour. Sometimes he picks at his food, removing the less pleasant parts like the fur and on occasion the whole head. He seems to prefer your food and steals the meat off of your plate any chance he gets.

How he manages it without eyebrows you don’t know, but sometimes he looks at you like you’re an idiot. Sometimes it’s like he’s laughing. Or sighing at your stupidity. But you think that might be you reading into things. Lord knows this bird seems to be seeking to end your sanity, maybe he’s starting to succeed.

You are starting to consider the option that maybe he isn’t an animal after all.

Yeah, he’s definitely driving you insane.

 

You bring one of your friends over. He’s into the workings of the brain and such, and you ask him if he has any opinions on your feathered friend. They just stare at eachother for a long time. Your bird then does what you privately think of as a disgusted scoff and turns away from you both, pretending you don’t exist.

"Strange," is all your human friend has to say.

"He does that a lot," you reply.

 

It happens just when you’re about to refill your kettle. It’s been a while since you’ve had time for friends of the human variety as your deadline has been drawing closer, and you find yourself relishing the quiet company of one of your favourite humans. You only step inside for a moment, just a minute, really, but that’s all it takes.

As you’re rummaging through the cabinets in search for more of that specific brand of green tea that tastes like vanilla and caramel, you hear a shrill cry followed by a loud bang from outside. For a second you are stunned, but then you simply drop what you’re holding and hurry back through the living room and outside. The table has been overturned, there’s- is that blood on the floor?! Neither bird nor man is anywhere to be found. Wide-eyed, you easily vault over the rail. Turning around, you find nothing. Your property is large but devoid of hiding areas, and really, you were only gone a _minute_.

Grumbling rather than panicking, you jog around the far corner as you didn’t see anything through the kitchen window. There you find your friend quickly enough, with two disturbing/confusing additions: a long, bloody gash down his forearm, and a naked stranger lying unconscious halfway into your nosy neighbour’s hedge. Actually, you are far more confused than disturbed.

"What the hell," you start, but Itachi cuts you off.

"Do you own a first-aid kit?"

"Uh," What the hell. "Yes?" He casually unbuttons his ruined cardigan and hands it to you with no outward signs of pain even as it sticks to his arm as he pulls it off. You’re left staring after Itachi as he makes his way back inside.

As if on cue, the unconscious stranger stops being unconscious and with a groan rolls over onto _his_ back. Whoops. You avert your eyes from his… parts and try to fight down a blush, glad that his are squeezed shut. Finding naked men rolling around halfway on, halfway off your property is a novelty to you.

Your traitorous subconscious whispers that it’s a thing you could probably get used to, if they are that pretty-

"Here," you grunt and drape the cardigan over his, uh, essentials. Then his eyes blink open.

"Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me.  _Seriously_!?”

Blue,  _familiar_  eyes crinkle at the corners as their owner coughs up a hoarse laugh. You don’t know what to say, so you simply offer him your hand. He grabs it and weakly stands up, leaning on you as he fumbles to get limbs that he isn’t used to work as they should. You sigh, accepting your fate and the fact that your fight against the blood vessels in your cheeks is a lost cause, and awkwardly help him cover up.

 

"Your house seems a lot smaller now," is the first thing he says once he regains control of his voice.

"I have no idea what’s going on," is what comes out of your mouth.

Itachi simply smiles softly and sips his tea.

"Deidara," he grins cheekily at you, offering you his hand. You decide to just go with it and grab it.

"Sasori."

 

Deidara ends up staying.

Apparently him turning into an eagle  _does_  happen a lot, though usually he isn’t stuck as one for weeks. You were half-joking when you asked, but that’s as good an answer as you seem to be getting.

When you ask Itachi about it he just smiles and shrugs, says he knows a guy who is also a shark.

You don’t like things that aren’t real being real, so you just take it for what it is and ignore it as much as possible.

 

Deidara is very difficult to ignore. He is vibrant and colourful and full of life and just  _there_.

He keeps trying to sneak into your studio, and you allow him to paint the guest room as a distraction. You tell him it looks like he blew up all the cans of paint in there. He just grins, all teeth showing, and kisses your cheek on his way out.

You stay in the same spot for almost ten minutes after he bounces outside to find something else to do. He’s warm, too.

 

He sits with you on the patio one evening. You watch the fireflies. He breaks the silence first, and what he says surprises you, but at the same time, it doesn’t.

"Do you ever get the urge to catch them?"

You almost reply that you’re not an animal and can in fact control your childish urges, thank you very much, but he looks at you through long, blond bangs in a way that makes you actually stop to consider. You look back at the bugs, and find yourself unable to stop thinking about it. You’re mesmerised. Deidara leans his head on your shoulder with a sigh, but you can’t tear your eyes away. Your fingers itch.

"You’re too… pragmatic sometimes, yeah? Just go. I sure as hell ain’t gonna judge you."

The shift feels strange.

It feels impossible, illogical, completely unscientific, but for once you just really could not care less.

You slide into your new form like it’s the one you’ve always been meant to have and quickly slink down the stairs, eyes trained on the flies.

They are difficult to catch, swift little things, and if you dwell too long on what you’re doing the whole thing seems stupid. So you don’t dwell.

You jump around, trying to catch them and occasionally succeeding, for what feels like hours before something compels you to return to the patio. You saunter over to Deidara, lazily considering your options before giving a mental shrug and laying down in his lap. He hums a song you vaguely recognise and scratches his fingers down your back, and you purr deep in your chest as you drift off.

 

You get your project done in time. You’ve worked practically non-stop for far too long, and made prototype after prototype using clay and whatever you had on hand, drying out your hands something awful, but in the end it’s worth it. It always is.

At first your creation looks like little more than a mess of twisted metal with a colourful church window smashed to pieces all over it.

(Beautiful in its own right, you say. Fucking awful, Deidara counters.)

In a moment of quiet the night before it is being picked up by the gallery, he asks you if it’s a metaphor for the inside being prettier than the outside. You smirk and reply, without looking away from your paper, so you mean it’s like an opposite for what I got when I found you?

He tries to swat you, laughing. As if you’d put up with me if you thought that!

Besides, _I’m_ the one who found _you_.

 

The lights dim and a small spotlight shines from below, revealing a shadow on the wall in the form of an eagle. The spotlight fades out as another illuminates the structure from another angle, showing now a cat chasing flies on the opposite wall. Another light reveals an ocean view, with fish and corrals and a shark looming in the distance. Yet another shows a mongoose fighting a snake.

In the corner the artist stands silently, enjoying the looks of awe the piece art inspires on the visitors’ faces, their murmurs of delight. Another man draws up beside him, handing him a flute of champagne and leaning down to whisper something into his ear. The artist smiles and sips his drink, answering his companion’s grin with a smile of his own.

If one of them grabs the other's hand in the semi-darkness of the room, well, no one's paying attention. 

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> This fic has a tumblr post [here](http://nattvingen.tumblr.com/post/52867985789/)!
> 
> [Deidara](http://25.media.tumblr.com/18fb1670d6319b32eb958b28304d0234/tumblr_mqgnm7Qed91qkhz0ko1_1280.jpg) | [Sasori](http://25.media.tumblr.com/5a563571a41e19cb9488faeb23e27680/tumblr_mp40ukUPW91qizfqio1_500.jpg)


End file.
